科技科学

Europe should adapt, not copy, China’s practical PhD

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  • Alan Żukowski0 &
  • Martyna Stępień1
  1. Alan Żukowski

    1. Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland.

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  2. Martyna Stępień

    1. University of Wrocław, Wrocław, Poland.

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The Careers feature on China’s product-based PhDs (see Nature 655, 1349–1351; 2026) explores an experiment worth studying. Its lesson for the European Union is not that a thesis-free PhD is superior, but that doctoral work can be redesigned around real-world problems at scale.

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Nature 657, 312 (2026)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-026-02736-6

Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

  • Graduating without a thesis: meet the people getting ‘practical’ PhDs in China

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Subjects

  • Education
  • Careers
  • Policy

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